Today's Word "Onomastics"
Published in Vocabulary
onomastics \o-neh-MAES-tiks\ (noun) - 1 : The study of the formation and origins of (proper) names; 2 : the system that underlies the formation of names and specialized nomenclature (related terms).
"Aubrey looked into the onomastics of his name and discovered that it a variant of 'Alberic,' which originally meant "elf power," which seemed appropriate for him, given his propensity for playing the long-lived race in role-playing games."
Today's word comes to us from Greek "onomastikos" from onomazein "to name," a verb based on the noun onoma "name." The underlying root here is *no-men-, which also gave us Latin nomen "name," found in "nominal," "nominate," and "misnomer." Variants include "noun" and all the words containing nym: "synonym," "homonym," "antonym." "Moniker" seems to have come from Old Irish ainm "name" and "name," like German "Name," itself is a Germanic variant.
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